Moody's: MF Bet Was Surprise to It

By

Jeannette Neumann And

Aaron Lucchetti

January 31, 2012

Moody's Investors Service told a congressional subcommittee that the ratings firm didn't know about MF Global Holdings Ltd.'s huge bets on European sovereign bonds until three days before the downgrade that helped push the company into bankruptcy.

Moody's, a unit of Moody's Corp., said in a recent letter to lawmakers that it first learned about MF Global's large European sovereign-debt investments on Oct. 21, three days before it cut...